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Scott Eric Williams

@weavetek

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Anytek, really.
Arts Education and Visual art.
Media: weaving, zines, wheatpaste, Hikikomori, Lego, Tek, libraries.
Western Cape, South Africa

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This past weekend, I had the honour of receiving an invitation to participate in Scott Eric Williams’ workshop “Something like an Archive: Zines as part of an artistic practice,” held as a conversational continuation of the @chr_uwc @museumher @kim_gurney exhibition “Tales of History Retold,” on view in Cape Town until Friday, 28 November 2025.

The exhibition, which I attended at its opening earlier that week, brings together the work of eight artists responding to the @avagallery.za archive- reimagining, reworking, and reframing fragments of history through their contemporary creative lenses.

Williams’ presentation, both theoretical and hands-on, expanded this dialogue by positioning zine-making as an act of radical archiving: intimate, decolonial, and personal.

In our discussions, Williams shared that zines: “are ways for us to reclaim the narrative and talk about the oppressions that we are experiencing in ways that are not controlled by the algorithm, in ways that cannot be suppressed by Instagram’s policies, or used to train technologies, or continue to oppress...”

I’m looking forward to distilling my reflections on the workshop- its ideas and its making- in relation to the growing movement towards an analogue resistance, where zines emerge (again) as method, research, and archive.

Thank you @weavetek for an engaging afternoon!

#zineculture #zinemaking #artasactivism

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Translation:

'Delft Dolly, Dolly from Delft'

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Our collaborative workshop titled “The Styles of Sound” that used fashion and jazz to reconstruct Daveyton histories is featured on the Afrika Bulletin Journal published quarterly by the Africa Committee Basel Basel. The journal is a collaboration between the Africa Committee Basel and the University of Basel’s Centre for African Studies.

Thank you to Dr @ericadegreef ; thank you to the team and creatives that came together to make it happen.

The Styles of Sound workshop, held from 17-19 January 2024 in Daveyton, brought together researchers, musicians, thrifters, and fashion thinkers to explore the intersections of fashion, music, and place-making. Hosted by the @afri_digital and @abengoni , and supported by the @nacsouthafrica , this three-day interdisciplinary event delved into the fashion legacies of Daveyton’s musicians since the 1950s. Participants engaged in critical fabulation, upcycling, and digital interventions, culminating in a recreated jazz event that co-created new visual histories. Led by Dr. Erica de Greef, Bongani Tau, and @weavetek , the workshop produced afrocentric design education materials and contributed to the ongoing Daveyton Studies research project.

Special thanks to:

@brimacafe and @tshepo.mekoa
@marvinkgomotso
@sbonelo_mlangeni
@weavetek
@collen.shoko and @patchandstitchsa
@mageba_osoft and @magebaosoft_studio
@ncaza_radical
@nacsouthafrica
@mac_de_niro
@simphiwestixmajozi
@abengonigram
@sifisomnisi
@art_meets
@yourfriendsinart
@izogii_

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Can’t wait to see you in Nairobi, Kenya in a month’s time! Registration starts on 1 Sep 2024 (first come first served). Programme details & the Zoom link will be sent to the registrants later. 🇰🇪🌟💃🏼

#ERC CoG China Africa Fashion Power #CAFP -
Fashion, Beauty & Creativity Unbound: China, Africa and the Multiple Souths: International Workshop

Time: Thu, 26 September, 2024
9:30 - 17:30 (East African Time EAT)
(8:30 - 16:30 Central European Summer Time CEST)

Venue: Nairobi Garage Spring Valley, 3rd Floor, The Promenade, Nairobi, Kenya and on Zoom.

Registration for both in-person and online attendance (see QR Code). Refreshments will be served.

Presenters include:
Prof. Adam Arvidsson (Università Federico II di Napoli) David Avido (Kenyan fashion designer)
Prof. Yiu-Fai Chow (Hong Kong Baptist University)
Dr. Erica de Greef (African Fashion Research Institute)
Sunny Dolat (The Nest Collective)
Prof. Anthony Fung (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Prof. Jeroen de Kloet (University of Amsterdam)
Siviwe James (South African fashion practitioner)
Dr. Tom McDonald (University of Hong Kong)
Prof. Patricia Pisters (University of Amsterdam)
Dr. Nina Sylvanus (Northeastern University)
Dr. Tommy Tse (University of Amsterdam)
…and more

Key themes:
- De-centering creativity
- Global Africa as Method
- Fashion supply chains
- Creative resilience
- Web3
- AI and creative labour
- Fast fashion
- Brands, labels & authenticity
- African creative industries

Sponsored by: The European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant 2021 research & innovation programme (grant agreement: 101046619) and the UvA Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA)

Supported by: Global Africa Research Group; African Fashion Research Institute; International Institute for Asian studies (IIAS); University of Nairobi; National Museums of Kenya & Nairobi Gallery; The African Studies Centre, Leiden; Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture; European Journal of Cultural Studies; The Nest Collective; and the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA).

Poster designed by: CAT and Qidi Feng.
Photography by: @fengqdi, @dyl_romeo, and Yingfei Faye Liang.

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What is the purpose of a new pattern?

Scott Williams presented “a question of strategies” as part of New Patterns Research-Reading Workshop in Kimberley, at the Northern Cape Theatre in July 2024. As an introduction to activist practices, zine-making as critical thinking, and what decolonial praxis can do in spaces, Scott shared ways and strategies to disrupt spaces and stereotypes through art-making. The New Patterns workshop also offered ways of making knowledge, and the workshop participants each made their own zines as a creative praxis of inquiry.

New Patterns hold immense decolonial potential in the classroom, in local creative economies, and in fashioning different futures.

The workshop participants also shared their work in a pop-up exhibition curated by Fabian Arries of Free Form Youth on the following day, Sunday 21 July 2024 at House 75a, in Diamant Park. The outdoor afternoon setting offered space for a discussion on funding for creatives, a musical blessing by Kaalvoet Prinses, a performance by spoken word artist Serge Morake, a showcasing of designers’ and artists’ work, and a DIY screen-printing workshop facilitated by Fabian Arries.

All photo credits to @bridgem._

#NewPatterns #AFRI #nationalartscouncil #awakeningsocialsessions #decolonizingfashion
#narratives #learning #programme #researchreadingworkshop #zinemakingworkshop

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What are new patterns and how are they created? Fashion and design education often repeats the multiple erasures and silenced afrocentric sensibilities, aesthetics and languages of wearing, perpetuating the colonial legacies of who has, owns or influences fashion. We are interested in how new patterns can shift the way fashion is taught, understood or even produced. These new patterns involve (k)new ways of cutting or creating garments creating new kinds of silhouettes, (k)new design approaches, and, (k)new thought-patterns that can radically shift perceptions and practices.

The New Patterns Research-Reading Workshop in Kimberley in July 2024 saw us partner with Tshepo Tlhalogang, of the Awakening Social Sessions, who invited a small group of academics- and creative practitioners-of-colour that included some Kimberley-based fashion designers, a spoken word artist, a lecturer in English, two Masters in Heritage Studies, a cultural activist, a graphic designer, a DJ and gender activist, and two cultural entrepreneurs.

Together we sat with, discussed and reflected on the materials that AFRI co-created in the first phase of the New Patterns programme in Daveyton in January 2024. The New Patterns programme draws on fashion as a route to rethink design practices and rewrite histories, but it is not limited to fashion, as we develop and decolonise materials for future design education spaces.

All photo credits are @bridgem._

#NewPatterns #AFRI #nationalartscouncil #awakeningsocialsessions #decolonizingfashion
#narratives #learning #programme #researchreadingworkshop #zinemakingworkshop

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The Mapungubwe Prototype Group’s design sprint inspired an educational environment that harnessed a more poetic riffing on ideas around patterns and patternmaking in fashion as starting points for researching local fashion narratives. During the three-day design sprint in Giyani, Limpopo the collective’s members participated in walks, interviews, eating and sharing which culminated in creative material outputs that will be available for viewing on the AFRI platforms.

The outputs will feature contributions from:
@abengonigram
@patchandstitchsa
@sirlomeo
@weavetek
@sinazochiya

Keep following our research project on our platforms as it develops.

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The New Patterns: The Mapungubwe Prototype Group is both a learning programme and a pedagogical exercise funded by National Arts Council Arts Organisation Funding.

#NewPatterns #Mapungubwe #Limpopo #Johannesburg #sustainable #upcycling #practices #fashion #narratives #learning #programme #nationalartscouncil

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Alongside AFRI’s other projects:

The Mapungubwe Prototype Group came about as a continuation of AFRI’s continued commitment to mentorship of fashion practitioners and decolonial educational pedagogies.

With the name inspired by the region’s known history as the site for the first indigenous kingdom in Southern Africa between 900 and 1,300 AD, the Mapungubwe Prototype Group becomes a multi-disciplinary method for AFRI’s hybrid education methodologies. Conceptualised by Scott Eric Williams – previously a member of @burning_museum - the workshop acts as a prototype for organizing fashion learning, and the creation and initiation of business practices.

The Mapungubwe Prototype Group was initially set as a way of exploring how design can be fostered in local communities; by way of co-creation methods it aimed at piecing together historic fragments with contemporary needs to create a new coherent whole.
By gathering a group of scholars, historians, makers, and designers, the workshop invited them to explore how everyday knowledges can inform an African interpretation of Technical and Outdoor wear. Hosted over three days the research involved conversations with local cattle herders, where the team learnt about their navigation practices of the landscape, as well as drives through the Giyani area. A visit to the Muti wa Vatsonga Museum offered the workshop participants an opportunity reflect on the Tsonga archive of innovation.

Finally the workshop participants leveraged their mutual interests in streetwear, the archive & sustainable fashion praxis, exploring and experimenting with ideas of how People of Colour codify themselves through dress to enhance their access to public and natural spaces.”

Credit
All footage: @sirlomeo @abengonigram @weavetek
Repurposed fabric supplied by: @tcborgza

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The New Patterns: The Mapungubwe Prototype Group is both a learning programme and a pedagogical exercise funded by National Arts Council Arts Organisation Funding.

#NewPatterns #Mapungubwe #Limpopo #Johannesburg #sustainable #upcycling #practices #fashion #narratives #learning #programme #nationalartscouncil

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How do we connect designers, researchers and students in creative fields with knowledge systems from the continent and the diaspora? On Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th of June we hosted our first Hybrid Course & Workshop across two geo-locations, Durban and Kampala, with our two knowledge partners, the Fashion Department at the Durban University of Technology, and Afropocene in Kampala, Uganda,

The Fold Hybrid Course and Workshop supports a cultural knowledge exchange where participants can connect in person and online to engage with decolonial design practices. The programme is an experiment with alternate ways of making, thinking and writing about fashion from the continent.

The two-day workshop saw around twenty participants across the two spaces engage with and enfold vernacular knowledges that centred on afro-sustainable methods and materials such as the isidwaba, indigenous dyeing practices and techniques, the cultural and creative value of olubogu (barkcloth), and the cultivation and conservation of the Mutuba tree (Natal fig).

What the course allows is a collaborative disruption of the impact of colonialism in African fashion, and a recentring of fashion education through indigenous histories, archives and contemporary practices. Through the Hybrid Course and Workshop we also continue to invite our alumni to return ‘to the fold’ with ongoing engagements and ever-evolving afrocentric knowledge exchanges in order to build (k)new communities of African fashion studies thinkers and makers.

📸 Bongani Tau

The Fold Hybrid Course & Workshop is supported by Business and Arts South Africa (BASA), the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) and the Presidential Stimulus Programme (PESP4) in collaboration with Afropocene Studio Lab and the Durban University of Technology. The Pan-African Research Residency 2024 is a creative research project led by the African Fashion Research Institute with the assistance of KQ Hub Africa and Afropocene, Kampala.

#PanAfricanResearchResidency #Isidwaba #Barkcloth #NewNarratives #AfricanFashionResearchInstitute #Uganda #FashionResearch #AfricanCulture #DSAC #PESP #BASA #BIZARTZA #explorepage

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The Pan African Research Residency programme (PARR24) included immersive and educational site visits with local afro-sustainable designers, makers and entrepreneurs in Kampala, Uganda.
These visits allowed the team to engage with traditional and sustainable practitioners who generously shared their knowledge of barkcloth production, creative practices, and other sustainable textiles such as banana fibres, and welcomed them into the diverse, local creative scene.

As creative researchers, our approach is to listen deeply, and learn from practitioners as a way to appreciate and understand the cultural significance and status of sustainable indigenous knowledges. It is also an opportunity for us to think about ways in which to revive these rural libraries of (k)new fashion knowledges.

By bringing to attention the practices and aesthetics that have been excluded from the design-fashion curriculum, we elevate these so-called LoTEK methods for future fashion pathways. Our aim is to consider how to introduce the vernacular into curricula, whether though shared practices or cross-cultural languages that are engaged with these hands-on knowledges. Through the Pan-African research residencies we begin to nurture, intercultural and regional fashion lexicons for more diverse and incluse afro-centric futures.

The team visited with TEXFAD, Bosco and his family, IGC, Isabella Isabeau and 32degreesEAST.

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📸 Bongani Tau

#PARR24 is brought to you with the support of Business and Art South Africa (BASA), the South African Department of Sport, Arts & Culture and the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP4) in collaboration with our ongoing educational collaborator, the Durban University of Technology Design Department, KQ Hub, Afropocene co-arts space (Uganda), as well as local & international independent organisations, artists, artisans, designers, makers and academics across both Uganda and KwaZulu-Natal.

#PanAfricanResearchResidency #Isidwaba #Barkcloth #NewNarratives #AfricanFashionResearchInstitute #Uganda #FashionResearch #AfricanCulture #DSAC #PESP #BASA #BIZARTZA #PARR24 #BASA #explorepage

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The Pan-African Research Residency 2024 sees our research team on a journey in and around Kampala.
Travelling from Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, Lesiba Mabitsela, Scott Williams and Thabiso Ncanana meet up with our Ugandan partners and friends as we co-create afrocentric resources and develop our local, decolonial and decentred research methods. The team’s visit will include studio and site visits with local practitioners from all spheres of Uganda’s creative economy to visibilize everyday makers, creatives and thinkers. The journey to Kampala opens up a different lens of being with others, and has meant that we are able to listen to and learn from cultural custodians that have preserved rich and diverse indigenous wisdoms.
As the residency continues, we unfold and share with the team’s explorations in Uganda.

Keep watching our stories to stay in touch with the ongoing journey.

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📸 Bongani Tau

#PARR24 is brought to you with the support of Business and Art South Africa (BASA), the South African Department of Sport, Arts & Culture and the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP4) in collaboration with our ongoing educational collaborator, the Durban University of Technology Design Department, KQ Hub, Afropocene co-arts space (Uganda), as well as local & international independent organisations, artists, artisans, designers, makers and academics across both Uganda and KwaZulu-Natal.

#PanAfricanResearchResidency #Isidwaba #Barkcloth #NewNarratives #AfricanFashionResearchInstitute #Uganda #FashionResearch #AfricanCulture #DSAC #PESP #BASA #BIZARTZA #PARR24 #BASA

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